martyrs

On Sunday May 12th, between 20 and 30 gunmen entered a Catholic church during Mass in Dablo, Burkina Faso, and started shooting the congregation. Six people, including Father Simeon Yampa, were killed. The attackers then set fire to the church with some worshipers still inside.

If we can understand Bonhoeffer outside the box—not as saint, not as mythological hero, but as someone who reflected poignantly on evil’s consequences for the human conscience and spirit, for an entire culture and country, we may begin to uncover the person behind the mythology: a man who tried to face the darkness of his times.